MSI Radeon RX 6600 XT Gaming X review - Product Photos

Product Photos

Any Radeon RX 6600 XT will be equipped with 8 Gigabytes of GDDR6 memory, it will be connected to a 128-bit wide memory bus, which is a severe limitation for a graphics card of this series. AMD is attempting to compensate for the limited memory bus by running that memory at 16 Gbps (effective data rate) and by incorporating an additional L3 cache on the GPU die (on-die) (32MB). When it comes to Full HD and WQHD resolutions, both will assist you; however, once the L3 cache is depleted, which will occur mostly in GPU-bound Ultra HD, you can expect to see a performance hit.

In this class, the Gaming X from MSI is the "premium model" for the time being, despite the fact that it is considerably simpler to use with an entry-level graphics card than it is with a high-end one, and so only partially lives up to the premium designation. 

The well-known Gaming X cooler has been condensed; instead of the original three axial fans, only two remain. With the exception of the shorter length, the cooler's design is remarkably similar to that of the larger branch. The identical cooler was also utilized on the MSI Radeon RX 6700 XT Gaming X, although it did not perform particularly well there either. However, it also had to deal with 210 watts in that product.

The Radeon RX 6600 XT Gaming X has only one 8-pin power connector, even when overclocked. The cooler must dissipate the official 130 watt TGP (GPU + memory) and 160-watt TBP (complete graphics card) That 8-pin PCIe connector indicates it has a maximum power of 225 watts, which is in line with the specs.

The cards all get HDMI 2.1 connectors and the latest iteration in DisplayPort. Most cards will hold an 8-pin headers configuration depends on AIC/AIB choices as partner cards are free to choose to use whatever they deem applicable. 

By the way, AMD limited the PCI Express bus towards 8 lanes, so that's x8 PCIe Gen 4.0. This will not hinder performance at all at PCIe 4.0, At PCIe 3.0 however that might be a few % different.